chronic pain

Kelly, I deal with this daily.
I  have Degenerative Disk Disease in my upper neck area. It causes symptoms similar to carpal tunnel in my upper extremities.
I use an inversion bed as part of my therapy. The inversion bed is best for lower back pain, as it relieves the pressure on the spine. Academy Sports sells them for about $99. (pm me if you want me to send you a picture)
I am also on a pain patch fentanyl, which is an opioid medication.  
The pain patch is the only thing that dulls the pain. I change it every two days.  I tried hydocodone, muscle relaxants to no avavail. Nothing worked.  
The first round of steroid shots (series of 3) lasted about 4 months.  I will try to continue to "manage" the pain.
This is the final step before I have to have an operation for a fusion of my neck. I  will never come off the pain medication.
Cronic pain is no fun, it can drive a person crazy.

I have used a TENS unit with a good bit of success. Especially if the muscles are spasming.  It seems to stop the spasms.  I bought mine for about $60 at my chiropractor.

My chiropractor also gave me some exercises to help strengthen the piriformis muscle and stop it from spasming.  He explained that your siatic nerve runs through this muscle so when it spasms it causes a great deal of pain.

Hope you can find so relief.

I feel your pain, literally. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis a couple of months ago that has progressively gotten worse. Some days I need my husband to help me get dressed and can barely walk to the bathroom, let alone sit on the toilet. Sorry, TMI. LOL! Since NSAIDS are a no no it's been tough. I take lortab to help me sleep but I refuse to take it during the day. My husband's in school and I'm the only one working so it's been hard. I have constant shoulder, knee and ankle pain with jaw pain thrown in randomly. At this point I just grin and bare it. Try new meds and hope they work. Honestly though, if there were a surgery that could possibly help my pain I'd do it. That's why I had RNY, afterall!

 I have had to sleep in a recliner for the past 5 yrs due to chronic pain from osteoarthritis. My knees (which, one has been replaced), hips and shoulders. I dream of a day when I can sleep in a bed. I've had problems with herniated discs, however, I had more problems when I was younger than I have now..thank goodness. Back pain is very difficult to deal with. 

 How is the knee that you had replaced?  Some people have very good experiences with knee replacement and others have seemingly endless issues (and continuing pain) after theirs.  That is what makes me so afraid to pull the trigger and have mine replaced.  That and the fact that it makes me feel queasy every time I think about HOW they do the replacement!

Lora

 Lora,

The replacement took away the daily pain with my knee. However, it took a year to become painless. I thought it was never going to stop hurting. Unfortunately, I have a little less than a 90 degree bend in it. I have to come down steps one-legged if that makes any sense. I am supposed to get my other knee done but I'm waiting to see if losing the weight will make a difference. I, too, know people that have a wonderful recovery and others that would choose not to do it again. I'm somewhere in the middle. 

Yes, I know exactly what you mean about coming down the stairs one leg at a time. I currently have less than 90-degree bend in my left legn so I frequently utilize it! The satisfaction rate on knee replacements really worries me. The devil you know vs the devil you don't know... Lora

I was a chronic pain patient for over 20 years after a car accident. I was a junkie for mixing prescription and non-Rx NSAIDS. Could only sleep for 3 hours at a time because the meds would wear off then. Also had the usual aches and pains due to SMO.

I started taking gabapentin (neurontin) for the nerve pain about 10 years ago and it was wonderful. Don't know if it works on your kind of pain. Took a while to get used to it.

Then weight management doc diagnosed a Vitamin D deficiency and B-12 deficiency. Once those were treated the "arthritis" all went away. No pain in knees, back, etc. I'm pretty sure this is not your problem.

One thing that always helped was to stretch. Hip pain often responded to quad stretches especially. n I think a lot of it is that once yo stop moving, your muscles get out of tome and that makes whatever caused you to be still even worse.

For the neck pain I found out that a little inversion therapy lying over the edge of the bed also helped.

I have only taken NSAIDS twice in the past year. Nothing else except the gabapentin.

Storm fronts would make me miserable. One time a storm came in while I was in the tub. Never felt that one. Had to have been the warm water.

 i've had back problems since 7th or 8th grade. doctors have always just blamed it on my ample chest, which i do think has a lot to do with it. i went for a massage over the summer which actually helped a good amount for awhile. the massuse said i hold my tension in the middle of my back which is abnormal and could be causing some of the pain too. i'm gonna try and go for another one this week when i'm back in pa (so much cheaper there!), my mom was supposed to get me a gift card for one for christmas so i held out on it, but of course she never did!

I've been a chronic pain patient for the last 15 years or so since my second triple-cervical fusion.  I'd recommend that you see a pain specialist if you aren't already.

The medicine that has worked for me is a very small dose of methadone (5mg).  Before it was prescribed to me, I thought it was only for Heroin addicts but my pain M.D. explained that it's one of the most effective analgesics and it has a very long half-life (which is also why it's dangerous for 'recreational use' because if not taken as directed it can cause overdose from people trying to get high.  It also doesn't give the 'high' that you get from other narcotics and I've been able to effectively do my IT job without any drowsiness.

I use a TENS unit, which is a wonderful distraction and also have Lidocaine patches for when it gets bad.  I get the steroid injections every 3 months. 

Another thing that works is facet point blocks, but my insurance only pays for one set a year and they only last a couple of months.

Good luck.  Pain sucks.